The F%$K Quentin Tarantino Thread

[twotrey]

Hey audiophilia, it seems you would be the perfect person to ask about his choice in music. What's your opinion?

 

[audiophilia]

Effective.

 

[whacked]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

A: First of all, he's an above average writer with (what was once

) a very unique style and pacing of dialogue. You can hear a monologue or dialogue, and instantly recognize it as Tarantino when you aren't even watching the movie.

As far as pure directorial chops go, he is stylistically pretty solid. He's derivative of other - some might say greater, stylistic directors like Hitchcock, Leone, and DePalma, but who in Hollywood isn't? Certain shots and setups are inherently dramatic. Its part of the storytelling process to use appealing and dramatic shots to your advantage. He does so better than most directors in the business today.

He has a willingness to emulate and pay homage to those that came before him, and willingness to use a variety of unconventional shots and sequencing to keep pace while he plays around with fairly advanced techniques like retrospective and non-linear storytelling. This is his style. Many people have aped his style too. Since Reservoir Dogs and especially Pulp Fiction came out, the use of non-linear storytelling especially, has gone through the roof. Probably to the point where it is now stale and cliche when it was once fresh and innovative. That happens, and it doesn't take anything away from the original works, in my opinion.

Tarantino likes to play with the traditional three act structure of a story. The way he structures many of his character arcs is still (to me anyways) fairly ingenious; In many of his movies, the audience's level of discovery is constantly at odds with that of his on-screen characters. Very rarely do you and the character you are watching on-screen know the same things about the situation that they find themselves in. Either they know more than you do (Pulp Fiction Briefcase scene), or you know more than they do (The climax of True Romance). To the best of my knowledge, nobody has made that their own like Tarantino, and I think in the long run that will be his legacy to future generations of filmmaker.

B: He has an excellent and nearly encyclopedic grasp of independent, pulp, under appreciated, and outside the mainstream films, both foreign and domestic. His tastes in film, as eclectic as they are, are frequently things that popular culture has to a certain extent only embraced and become MORE mainstream when he brings attention to them. Any time things outside the Hollywood mainstream reach a wider audience, it is better. Directly, Tarantino was pretty instrumental in bringing Chinese cinema to America. Chungking Express (and Wong Kar-Wai), for example would not have gotten the attention it did in the U.S. without being distributed by Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Pictures. Same goes with a dozen other movies. And indirectly, Tarantino's endless obsession and homage to movies outside the mainstream has caused a lot of people, myself included, to seek out and watch the movies he references because ultimately, we respect his tastes in film and want to see a bigger picture of what he was trying to accomplish on-screen, or appreciate more films with similar thematic elements to the one we just watched. One of the first things I did after I watched Grindhouse was go find Vanishing Point, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, and Two Lane Blacktop. I'm sure that to a certain extent - many others did the same.

You are awesome.


Happy new year to people in the States!

 

[randallr]

I liked Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill's, Grindhouse kinda sucked.

 

[why]

The dialogue he's known for feels more like psychobabble. It's fast-paced and vacuous at the same time, leaving me confused and bored. The actions of the characters dictate what happens (usually by killing each other), and the only reason they talk is to fill in the silence between action scenes. Pulp Fiction in particular felt like a Seinfeld episode without any humor: it was characters conversing about nothing in between commercial breaks of sensationalism.

 

[Dion]

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are lovely. Jackie Brown is quite good too

Kill Bill 2 was nice, a bit out there

 

[Spatlese]

I remember reading a GQ profile on Mira Sorvino years back while she was dating Tarantino, where she gushed about what a great f**K he was. The follow-up line from the writer was something along the lines of "would you expect any less from the guy who dreamed up the Gimp?"

 

[otc]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Probably to the point where it is now stale and cliche when it was once fresh and innovative. That happens, and it doesn't take anything away from the original works, in my opinion.

I agree with this, unfortunately I think there are a lot of people my age who just don't get it. Cliches aren't cliched when you are looking at them in their original context but so many younger people can't recognize the greatness in the original works. I suppose this happens less with Tarantino's work since people have been able to experience pulp fiction or his other work before getting too much outside exposure to the stylistic elements. Where I see it happening the most is with works that are a bit older (like older Ridley Scott) that suffer from both a slower pacing and a bunch of themes that have been used and abused by all sorts of modern movies--I see no reason why this same dilution won't happen with Tarantino's work as the films age. Maybe the OP is 5-10 years younger than me and this has already happened.

 

[Go Surface]

You could say the same thing about Wes Anderson films. Heavily ornamented, and woefully affected. Too much false, supposed eccentricity masking emotional deficits. I don't think they're touching because they try way too hard, and not in an earnest way.

*edit*

I'm a big Quentin fan.

 

[thekunk07]

i kind of agree. jackie brown was his best IMO.

pulp still holds up pretty well. the rest are either "borrowed" or suck.

his best work is true romance.

 

[zeni]

I appreciate his affection and knowledge of independent/world/Asian cinema, I just wish he'd use it to create something other than messy postmodern pastiche. This could be completely wrong but I get the impression from watching his films that he never examined Asian films beyond that superficial-Ain't-It-Cool-News-fanboy-ish level of, "wow Asian extreme cinema lol kewl xtreme blood!" thing and as a result his films feel kind of hollow imo. That said, I think Pulp Fiction holds up the best.

 

[otc]

Off topic:

I havn't seen Death Proof, should I watch it as a part of grindhouse or should I watch the separate release?

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by otc

Off topic:

I havn't seen Death Proof, should I watch it as a part of grindhouse or should I watch the separate release?

Honestly... i don't know. I watched it theatrically, so it was together - but on first viewing DP was sort of a less gratifying movie, and I dont like that it was second after the more immediately accessable, and likeable Planet Terror. Death Proof is really, if you look at it, a pretty experimental film. Not only is it the first linear film Tarantino has ever directed, its the only film he's been both director and cinematographer on. Its a hybrid slasher and chase movie, and Tarantino cut it down to the point of almost not making sense in order to fit his time slot.

For those of you who thought it was "too long" at 90 minutes just imagine that he supposedly cut something like 40 minutes to an hour out.

I'd probably see it separately I guess.Or if you were going to try and watch Grindhouse all together, I'd watch DP first. PT second. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Thracozaag]

Destiny Turns on the Radio--fantastic

 

[Eason]

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

What bothered me about "Deathproof" was that it seemed like an incredibly selfish, INDULGENT movie on his part. Like, he knew he didn't have a 100 minute movie plot, but he had a STELLAR ending, so he filled the movie with his "pithy" dialogue that he's known for and expects the audience to take it, because he's QUENTIN TARANTINO. Well, it wasn't "crisp, fresh, OR pithy," it was just boring as hell.

The problem with the above is that his whole schtick was being independent from and "different" than old-hat, boring movie directors. He didn't take his audience for granted... or so it seemed. Well, now, he IS the mainstream.

That's sort of what happens when you get big for being indy. After a while, you aren't indy anymore and you become the establishment, or (given the number of Pulp Fiction style clones), the industry becomes YOU.

Agreed. Boring as ****. The guy is also so ugly, he's like his own race.